Questionable
by amitai
Summary: Sometimes, John just found it too difficult to choose. And then the choice was made for him. Explicit slash and Het.


Umm... OK. Yeah. This is... different. I've never written anything like this before, so I hope to god it works!!

The rating will go up when this damn computer lets me PUT it up... at the moment, it's not having any of it. I think it's trying to bar me from posting this because it doesn't like it...

Everyone's a critic.

Right, so... read this as practice at writing nearly-maybe-smut with a dash of plot thrown in. And also a slightly dark!fic. Be aware also that it would be an M-rating if the damn computer would let me make it so...

oh, yeah. and SLASH. Mustn't forget that - EXPLICIT slash (and I've never written THAT before.). Anyone who might think about flaming slash, take your bile elsewhere, I've got no time for silly, immature children.

On that note, dear readers... onwards.

DISCLAIMER: Anthony Horowitz would be rolling in his - um, bed - if he knew what I was doing to his poor, beknighted characters.

* * *

"We shouldn't be doing this." John whispered to the other man, even as he pressed closer to him. "Helen…"

"Isn't here." Yassen murmured back. "She's whole continents away."

John didn't answer, preferring to let silence speak for him, hissing as Yassen bit his neck, one hand moving to press against the Russian's short blond hair, pulling his head closer. Teeth were replaced by a warm tongue, and John allowed himself to forget – momentarily – the good woman he'd left in England. As Yassen said, she wasn't here right now, and Yassen was the one with him at the moment.

Having managed just about managed to justify it to himself, and firmly shutting his mind to any further objections which could come to him – and there were several – John pulled Yassen up for another kiss. He thought he might well be able to be happy with those kisses for the rest of his life, if he didn't have Helen's…

But that was another thought he could be having right now, so he concentrated on where he was at the moment, putting everything into that one kiss, feeling the familiar stir he always felt at the way Yassen returned it so strongly, far stronger than Helen.

John hated comparing these two, the two people who meant the most to him, more than anything and anyone else in the world. He could never have them both, not properly; Yassen meant that he didn't have Helen, because he couldn't give her everything, they both held something back – and Helen meant that he could never have Yassen. Though – and John smiled sourly into the next kiss, turning it vicious, nipping at Yassen's lips, and feeling with a thrill, the way the other man moaned and tried to thrust up against him – _Yassen_ meant John could never have him. The Russian was hardly the sort of person who was going to give himself up to anyone.

But John wanted him. He wanted him so badly that he was willing to forget Helen, just for a few minutes, for as long as he could, to just enjoy being with Yassen for as long as the other man let him, and if that meant that he went back to Helen with a guilty conscience, he was starting to think that it was worth it.

He could feel Yassen hard against him, lying as they were on the cheap motel bed, Yassen with his legs spread wide, John between them, moving lazily and not providing anywhere near enough friction. His jeans were getting to be painful, and he was sure Yassen's were for him, but this was one of the few times Yassen was not fully in control of the situation, and though John allowed himself the minor relief of unzipping his trousers, he denied it to Yassen. The other man was going to have to wait.

Cool blue eyes, hot with desire, opened, staring up at him. "Please." Yassen rasped, unwillingly, and John grinned, rather savagely, palming his cock through the jeans. Yassen whimpered, arching up into the touch; John chuckled, a little breathlessly, as his own cock rubbed against the harsh denim, providing a friction which was almost painful.

He didn't have to be gentle with Yassen and he loved it.

* * *

Once it was over, Yassen rolled away from him, standing and grabbing a towel from the rack – and John couldn't help but compare Yassen and Helen, remembering the way Helen curled into him afterwards, the warm, comfortable weight of her head on his shoulders.

Yassen would never do warm and comfortable – he just didn't have it in him.

"We can't do this again." The words were out before he meant them to be – a good few months before he meant them to be, but once he'd said them, he liked the way they sounded. "We can't do this again – ever." He repeated, and took a moment of satisfaction in the way Yassen stilled at his words.

"What do you mean?" the Russian asked, very quietly.

"What does it sound like I mean?" John returned, carefully extricating himself from the thin, tangled sheet, and pulling on his jeans, slipping on a casual white shirt, and kitting himself up with his weapons again, knowing that Yassen was carefully turning this new twist over in his head, and would have a response in a minute or so.

When he turned back, the blond man was looking thoughtful. "Any particular reason?" he asked. There was no sarcasm in his tone, no hurt or rejection; just casual interest.

They both knew that John would never have answered if Yassen had sounded desperate. They didn't work like that; emotional detachment was the key stone in their lives.

"Helen's having a baby." He'd known that weeks ago, and it hadn't stopped him then, but that was one thing Yassen didn't know. "I may not have many morals, but I've got a few. I'm not going to cheat on my pregnant wife." Sometimes, he thought this job with Scorpia was getting to him, eroding his morals. And sometimes, he wondered whether he'd had any to begin with.

Yassen simply raised an eyebrow at him. "That's it?"

"You want more reasons?" John asked, the faintest hint of censure in his tone.

The other man shrugged. "I don't _want_ more – I just think you have others."

John nodded, slowly. "I do. But I'm not going to go into them now."

"Fair enough. I'm going to shower, then we're heading out, right?"

"Yes. We're hitting the priest today." he was relieved by the moral flinch he felt saying that; if he could still feel bad about it, he wasn't totally irredeemable.

Sleeping with his much-younger male partner behind his pregnant wife's back, now, _that_ was irredeemable.

"Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow we're targeting Luis Martín." They were in Rio de Janeiro at the moment, working two separate jobs. One could reasonably be expected to go off without a hitch; Martín would be more difficult. But then, they were one of the best partnerships Scorpia had, and it was nothing they couldn't handle.

* * *

The priest they were hitting – Rodriguez Montoya – was an easy target, and he went down immediately, a bullet placed neatly between his eyes. Minimum blood, minimum planning, minimum fuss. Martín was an entirely different story, and though Yassen had taken the first shot, it was John who finally finished it for the man, taking advantage of the chaos their shooting had caused to slit the man's throat.

He was out of the crowd before anyone even noticed Martín was dead. He and Yassen slipped away and changed, and five minutes later, no one would ever know that they had been there.

That was how they were supposed to be, and John could feel himself hating it more and more each day. He wanted to leave an impression, wanted to make himself felt; he wanted to stop ending up in foreign countries ending other people's lives and leaving without a trace.

This was Yassen's life, not his. And John wanted out and away from everything to do with it. Everything, including Yassen.

* * *

They flew from Rio to Morocco, where they spent a few days overseeing the drugs which Scorpia were smuggling into France and Spain, before heading back to Malagosto.

Julia Rothman was waiting for them, her hair perfect, her smile polished.

"John!" Her voice even sounded genuine. "It's so wonderful to see you again. I trust everything went to plan?"

He nodded, once. "Of course. Hunter and I dealt with all the problems as required."

She almost pouted at him, and John longed for Yassen's blunt directness, and immediately felt guilty for it. Helen's sweet, unstudied reactions, they would be quite enough.

They had to be.

Julia had linked her arm with his, and was talking to him about an assignment in Malta, Mdina, and he shook his head.

"I need some time off, Jules." He said, forcing himself to use the nickname he so hated, and which suited this polished, sophisticated woman so badly. It made her sound like a middle-aged woman trying to recapture her teenage years, and it always sat badly on his tongue. "I've been doing assignments for months. This one – whatever it is – can wait."

She pouted up at him, but he shook his head, forced a smile. "Don't. I need… I don't want to burn out on you."

"Well, when you put it like _that_…" she murmured, clasping his arm a little tighter. Distantly, John wished she'd be less clingy. "How long do you want?"

"A month." He said, immediately, and she frowned momentarily, before nodding, slowly.

"We can manage that." She shot him a quick look from under her eyelashes. "You have to promise to spend some of it with me, though!"

John turned to look at her, stroking his finger down one powder-soft cheek. "Of course." He murmured, and wondered, rather worriedly, just when he had become so good at this.

He turned away from her, intending to head to his room in the Malagosto complex, and met Yassen's eyes.

The Russian gave him a sardonic nod, and turned away, and John had to swallow the guilt which rose in this throat.

He owed Yassen nothing.

* * *

Helen was delighted to see him, so frank and honest about it that John almost forgot about all the things he'd been so desperately trying to forget. And if Yassen sometimes strayed into his thoughts when he most emphatically should not have, he could ignore him most of the time.

He played house with his wife, in a flat he had bought and rarely lived in, listening to Helen's chatter about her day at the hospital, letting her bright, cheerful normality wash over him, soothing him. He met with Tulip Jones, a new 'employee' of MI6's, who would relay his information to the high-ups. He went out for lunch with Ian, and spent an uncomfortable half-hour waiting for Ian – his little brother, his _MI6-employed_ little brother, who knew him better than anyone and was paid to be attuned to things like this – to notice the glaring differences in him. He took half an hour to realise that there would be no difficult questions, no piercing glances.

That night, he made love to Helen, slow and gentle, totally unlike he had ever managed with Yassen, loving the way she acted with him, her reactions and softness, loving her for it.

And if he wondered what love-making like that would be with Yassen, well… he knew no one would know but himself.

* * *

And there it is. it's a ONE shot, so don't expect updates - but I hope you enjoyed it!

Lol,

-ami xxx


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